Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Horrorfest 2012 Preview

It has been a long hot
summer, and to be honest, it is still far too hot outside going into my
favorite month of the year. That’s right. October is about to roll around once
again, and that can only mean that another Penny in the Well Horrorfest is
about to invade my blog, my viewing habits, my life for the next 31 plus days.
And, you my dear readers will only benefit from one of the most intense month
long horror festivals on the Internet.

One new feature to this
year’s Horrorfest is that I will revisit three classic zombie flicks from
Horrorfests past with full-length reviews. My reviews of “Fido”, “Let Sleeping
Corpses Lie” and “Shaun of the Dead” were recently featured in the new e-zine
Zombie Apocalypse Monthly, a monthly survival guide for those preparing for the
impending zombie apocalypse. You can grab your digital or physical copy here. I’ll
also be screening the first season of AMC’s zombie television series, “The
Walking Dead”. I’ll keep the zombie theme going by catching up with George
Romero’s last socio-zombie commentary “Survival of the Dead”. The widely
praised zombie flick “Pontypool” follows a shock jock on a Valentine’s Day that
is started off when he runs into a crazy woman.

Tim Burton will be bringing
the dead back to life in his latest theatrical release, a stop-motion 3D
animation remake of his fist live action short “Frankenweenie”. I’ll probably
revisit the original as well, which has so many clever and ingenious qualities
of its own. And, I’ll look at Burton’s very first film; the stop-motion
animated short “Vincent”. Other theatrical entries this year will include the
second Adam Sandler/Andy Samberg collaboration of the year, the classic horror
monster-themed “Hotel Transylvania”, and “Paranormal Activity 4” will be
hitting theaters and probably raising more questions than it answers to prolong
the series for next year.

I have no plans to dig too
deep into classic horror this year, but I will tackle some less revered cult
classics. The original “Toxic Avenger” is sure to disappoint, but it’s about
time I checked out this camp classic. I’ve never heard a good thing about “I
Spit On Your Grave”, but the cover art for the original tantalized my eyes
enough when I was in high school that I can’t believe I never gave into its
exploitational aspects. This year I will. The original “Creepshow” was fun
camp, but “Creepshow 2” was shut down so quickly by critics, I never got around
to seeing it even though it contains one of my favorite Stephen King short
stories “The Raft”. I’ll witness its awfulness finally. I was delighted by the
remake/reboot of “Piranha 3D” a couple years back, so I though I might revisit
the original version and the sequel “Piranha 3DD” this year. I’ll also revisit
the surprisingly good reboot of “The Thing” from last year’s theatrical
releases, which is really a prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 remake of the
classic sci-fi thriller.

Two similarly themed
Hollywood original horror flicks were released last year that had to do with
light, or the lack there of. “Vanishing on 7th Street” deals with a
Detroit power outage that finds the shadows acting in a murderous nature. While
the Moscow-based “The Darkest Hour” finds American tourists trying to survive
an alien invasion where the aliens are energy-based and search out electricity
to fuel themselves.

Most of this year’s entries,
however, are from an eclectic mix of foreign and independent selections that
have been alternately praised and dismissed by critics. “The Woman” is a
disturbing tale of a sadistic lawyer who locks a feral woman in his shed in an
attempt to “civilize” her.“Dream
Home” finds a woman who is willing to do anything to create her perfect home.
“The Human Centipede: Full Sequence” is the second installment of the
controversial German horror trilogy about mad scientists creating a human
centipede. “Cold Fish” is a shocking Japanese entry that sees the proprietor of
a tropical fish business getting pulled into the dealings of a serial killer
and his psychotic wife. “Red White & Blue” might not sound like a
Horrorfest entry, but it is purported to have a shocking twist ending. And,
“Daylight” is another cautionary tale about picking up hitchhikers.

There will be even more than all that, including the supernatural
thrillers “Red Lights” and “Beyond the Black Rainbow”, the comedic spoof
“Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” and even a Christmas horror flick in which Santa
Claus is evil in “Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.” I will also be posting my
regular theatrical reviews of such releases as “The Master”, “Looper”, and
“Argo”.

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About Me

Andrew D. WellsAndrew is a professionally trained actor and stage director. He was a reporter for the daily newspaper The Marshall Democrat-News. He has been critiquing film since Mr. Lucas released the first of his "Star Wars" prequels in 1999. His reviews can also be seen atMarshall Democrat-News